Phys.org July 15, 2024
The eco-epidemiology of zoonoses is often oversimplified to host-pathogen interactions while findings derived from global datasets are rarely directly transferable to smaller-scale contexts. Researchers in Austria compiled a dataset of naturally occurring zoonotic interactions in Austria, spanning 1975–2022 and introduced zoonotic web to describe the complex relationships between zoonotic agents, their hosts, vectors, food, and environmental sources. They demonstrated that the most influential zoonotic sources were human, cattle, chicken, and some meat products confirming the increased probability of zoonotic spillover at human-cattle and human-food interfaces. They characterized six communities of zoonotic agent sharing driven by highly connected infectious agents in the zoonotic web, proximity to human, and anthropogenic activities. According to them frequency of emerging zoonotic diseases in Austria is one every six years. They developed a flexible network-based approach that offered insights into zoonotic transmission chains, facilitating the development of locally relevant One Health strategies against zoonoses… read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLEÂ
Network representation of the zoonotic web in Austria, 1975–2022.
Credit: Nature Communications volume 15, Article number: 5650 (2024)